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Scottish Government outline actions in response to economic, social and cultural rights observations

  • Area of Work: Policy and Research
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 3rd December 2025
human rights

The plan comes in response to the Concluding Observations from the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights earlier this year.

The Scottish Government have published a “high level action plan“, setting out the actions they are undertaking in response to the recommendations from a UN Committee. The seventh periodic review of the UK under the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural rights (ICESCR) took place in late 2024 and early 2025, with the Committee investigating progress towards these everyday human rights.

As part of the review, the work and policies of both the UK and Scottish Governments were scrutinised against their ICESCR duties. In addition, organisations had the opportunity to submit parallel reports to the Committee, which the ALLIANCE did in January. In February this year the Committee published their “Concluding Observations“, which set out their findings and recommendations following the review. These included:

  • Progress needs to be made to incorporate economic, social and cultural rights in Scotland.
  • UK fiscal policy is not doing enough to address inequality, and action should be taken to assess the impact of fiscal policy on economic, social and cultural rights, and disadvantaged groups.
  • The budgets for social security, health and other ICESCR rights should be increased.
  • Disability-related social security, including PIP and ESA, should adequately cover additional disability-related costs in line with the human rights model of disability.
  • Actions need to be stepped up so that everyone has access to affordable energy and heating.
  • Mental health services and systems need sufficient resources, strengthened community-based support, initiatives that destigmatize mental health issues and targeted measures for groups disproportionately affected by mental health problems.

In the action plan, the Scottish Government set out some of their existing actions and future plans in response to the Concluding Observations. On social security for example, the Scottish Government note that investment remains substantially higher than under the previous UK Government system, and that they will publish their response to the Independent Review of Adult Disability Payment early next year. In relation to non-discrimination, they note the publication of the Disability Equality Plan in June this year, and ongoing work to develop a Human Rights Bill.

You can read the full plan on the Scottish Government website.

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